EIM06257 - Employment income: scholarship income: miscellaneous awards: teacher training salaries: teaching grants

Section 776 IT(TOI)A 2005 (Section 331 ICTA 1988)

Teacher training salaries/training grants

Individuals who begin a postgraduate course in initial teacher training in England and Wales are eligible to receive a training salary (in Wales, a training grant) of £6,000. The award is paid by the training provider and funded by the Department for Education and Skills. Payment does not depend on the successful completion of the course, or on the individual taking a job as a teacher.

The teacher training salary, or training grant, is not chargeable to tax. The people who receive them are not employees. They are trainees, or postgraduate students, and the award is in the nature of an additional scholarship or bursary. There is more about contracts of training in the Employment Status Manual at ESM1113.

Golden hellos/teaching grants

Postgraduate teacher trainees in shortage subjects are eligible to receive a payment of £4,000 when they successfully complete their first year of teaching in England or Wales. The payment is called a golden hello in England, and a teaching grant in Wales.

The shortage subjects are maths, English, science, modern foreign languages, design and technology, information technology and Welsh.

Unlike the training salaries and training grants described above, the £4,000 is paid only to people who actually take a teaching job in a shortage subject and remain in a teaching post. The payment is an inducement to enter employment. It is taxable as earnings from the teachers employment within Section 62 ITEPA 2003 (see EIM00700).